Alewife Catcher
by Virodeil
Summary: For B2MeM 2012 Day 12. "They think me incapable of everything. Well, they are wrong. Who cares about their opinions, anyway? They do not provide us our bread and meat; I do."


Title: Alewife Catcher  
Author: Eärillë

Number: N31  
Challenge: Occupations: Alewife

Summary:  
"They think me incapable of everything. Well, they are wrong. Who cares about their opinions, anyway? They do not provide us our bread and meat; I do." – With his warrior father and healer mother killed in the War of the Last Alliance, a clubfooted boy from a northern village under the rule of Arnor must provide for himself and his siblings. People should have known that catching fish uses more hands than feet…

Rating: G  
Warnings: first draft

Characters: OFC, OMC  
Genres: Character Study, Vignette  
Place: source of Anduin: unspecified  
Timeline: Third Age: early  
Word Count (in MS Word): 1,205

Reference:  
Alewife: "migrating herring: a herring that migrates up rivers to spawn. It appears off the Atlantic coast of North America in early summer and can be eaten as food." – taken from Microsoft Encarta Premium 2009, Encarta Dictionaries.

Notes:  
The author was baffled – and so, so surprised – when she searched the word "alewife" in her dictionary and found the quotation at the reference section above as the only sense of the word. She would beg her readers to tell her if there is (or are) any other sense(s) of the word that she did not know. And because the prompt "alewife" came from the "Occupations" Bingo card, she tried to improvise, hense "alewife catcher." Her knowledge of Middle-earth map is limited too, so please pardon her for dissimilar parallels between the two likely spawning places of the herring (between our earth and Middle-earth).  
In this piece, the elder brother (the main character) is 11 years old while his little sisters are 5 years old. It is told in first person point of view and present tense.  
Dedicated to people with disability who still try to do their best on everything. And for others who are not, the author would like to clarify that this is to be an encouragement, not a condescension.

**Alewife Catcher**

The small waterfall, ringed by big (and sometimes sharp) boulders that glisten with moss and water-spray, is still a daunting sight for me even after a month, but the silvery fish leaping up over it holds most of my attention. Fish means meat to eat, and edible meat means our family will have good sustenance for some time at least, if we do not have much for sale.

"Do you have the pail and the net-pole with you?" I address my younger twin sisters without looking back at them. "Ellen!" I squawk when one of them traps my head inside the ringed netted bowl of the net-pole. (I modified my butterfly-catcher net-pole a month ago, when I heard the news that my parents were killed, so it is now more apt for catching fish than butterfly.) Judging from the hollow banging sound of fingers on wooden pail from my other side, the other twin is also showing in her own way that she does have the item entrusted to her. Thus pouting irritatedly, I continue creeping onwards among the rocks to my destination: the edge of the waterfall, specifically the narrow space between two boulders a hand's distance from the cascading water.

I love my little sisters, I do, but they are so annoying sometimes. At moments like this, I would really love to get rid of them for just a while; but at this particular moment I know that I cannot do so. I need their help to store the fish into the pail and guard the goods from any thief as I work trying to catch the fish in the first place. And however irritated I am at them, I will never willingly let them suffer working by themselves for our daily needs. I am their elder brother by six years, and I shall provide for us all, however skeptically the other villagers think of it. My father always said that if there is a will then there is a way, and my mother always encouraged me to function as normally as possible around the house, giving me household chores like other mothers to their children. I shall not disappoint them now, while only their memories remain after the war. They never came back from the distand south-land alongside many others from our village, and now we children are all that remain to pick up the broken pieces of our lives.

I am not excepted from that fate, so here I am, trying to fill in both of my parents' roles at once. Some of the adults might have been willing to help me instead of discouraging me and acting condescendingly, but unfortunately they were in the King's troops together with Father and Mother and also never came back to the village. Others… well, my little sisters always tries not to report what their playmates say about me, but their guiless looks say many things. Often I wish that our parents were alive and here in the village with us, only so I could just be myself and weep freely instead of trying to act bravely and not caring.

But they are not here, and I have tasks to do and two little sisters to mind and rear in their absence. I can feel Ellen occasionally poking me on the back with the handle of the net-pole and hear Ivrin banging the pail on the rocks, and take comfort from that. At least they still get to be carefree, even if it annoys me to no end.

Then, just like every other morning, I situate myself between the two boulders by the waterfall that I have been eyeing. (I use them to brace myself upright on my feet for the height advantage, as much as it can get with my feet being shorter than normal and deformed like this anyway, and hold me should the fish in the net struggle too much.) Ellen hands me the net-pole when I reach out a hand for it, while Ivrin nestles the pail among the rocks nearby. Praying to the Lord of Waters and the Mother Earth for a good catch, I site my hands along the lower part of the net-pole's handle. Then, with a deep breath of early-summer air and fine spray, I swing the net-pole towards the flying fish in a cupping motion before flinging it carefully to the direction of my sisters, nearly dislodging myself from the boulders in the meantime.

Ellen shrieks, Ivrin shrieks, and I hear two wet flopping sounds on the rocks, followed by two sets of padding feet and rustling clothes,. Not bad then. Two fish. At least my sisters got to eat a good meal today.

Another deep breath, another prayer, another cupping swing, another fling—

"Yaaaahh. . ."

— And I got nothing. Strange that my sisters bemoan it now while they shrieked on being pelted by two fishy missiles. . .

Another deep breath, another prayer, another cupping swing, another fling, and my temple hits the left boulder when I stumble. It was so heavy! Judging from the heavier flopping sound and the twins' squeals of delight though, it was a good catch; probably a big one. Good for sale, then; I cannot bake bread and neither my sisters. My throbbing temple is worth it, although I will rue later in the day when it swells.

I lean against the left boulder for a moment, catching my breath and rubbing at the sore spot, but straighten quickly when I hear my sisters putting the latest catch into the pail. Time to begin again.

Deep breath, pray, swing, fling—

"Yaaaahh. . ."

Oh. Empty again, then. No matter. The day has just begun and I still have much energy and will to continue.

Deep breath, pray, swing, fling—

"Yaaaaee!"

Three wet flops on the rocks, and I fall onto my backside from the momentum of flinging the heavy net-pole to land, laughing with my sisters all the while. Three! That means I get to eat fish too today. My bum is sore though…

And it seems that we shall have company soon, since I can hear heavy footsteps crunching on the pebbles of the path. We had better go now, before anyone there sees our catches and take them from us. (It happened a few days ago, and we had to starve for the day.) Thus, a little regretfully, I shush my sisters and scramble away from my fishing spot, hurrying as best as I can towards our pail. "Come on," I whisper urgently at the twins, who thankfully obey and scamper towards me and the pail with the newest catches in their hands.

The footsteps are getting closer, but we are shielded by a short wall of rocky cliff, and the twins are already hauling the pail between them towards the hidden path back to the village that we alone know. The flying silvery projectiles over the waterfall look so tempting, but sadly they have to wait for tomorrow. I promise myself to come back tomorrow, thank the Lord of Waters and the Mother Earth for the fish, then hurry after my sisters.

I am glad. We can eat today.


End file.
